It was a life changing spin for Fredrick Robillard at the Northern Lights Casino in the early hours of Mar. 6.
The 68-year-old from Stony Rapids won over $1,781,924.70 playing the Smoke Signals progressive slot machine.
Speaking to reporters following the cheque presentation on Friday morning, Robillard says it was just a stroke of luck that he even tried playing on the Smoke Signals machine.
“A couple nights ago, I lost playing blackjack. After that table shut down, I started walking around and somebody said ‘hey, play that machine.’. I never played that machine before. That first spin, something came down and then people started running to me and said ‘you hit that smoke signal’.”
In terms of what he has planned for the winnings, Robillard says he has no concrete plans as of yet.
“I don’t make big plans with what I’m going to do with that money ahead of time. I don’t want to make plans because sometimes plans can be broken and promises can be broken so I’m not going to rush into things.”
Smoke Signals is a progressive jackpot accumulated at all seven of the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority (SIGA) casinos.
SIGA President and CEO Zane Hansen says it was exciting to see the pot to a high level before being won.
“We’ve got probably 45-50 machines connected on the network, and we put in a seed amount of money, and then as the players play, the pot grows, and then it hits at some point. I think it’s supposed to hit generally before $2 million, so this one got up pretty high, it was really exciting to see Fred coming with a win at that level.”
Hansen also explained that SIGA operates the Smoke Signal progressive as their way of giving back to long-time players at their casinos.
“We wanted to set this one up to be that life-changing type experience, something back to our players that you’re just not going to see in a lot of other casino properties. It’s been really well received. It’s one they get really excited about, and we have a lot of fun with it.”
To date, Smoke Signals has paid out $71,554,918.87.
